36 Asia The EconomistJuly 13th 2019
21flatness of the Brahmaputra valley, it takes
little effort to coax out nrcnightmares.
Take the case of Somiron Nisa, a recent
high-school graduate. Everyone in her
family appeared on draft nrc lists as
proper citizens, and in the first draft she
did, too. But beside her name on the latest
draft it says “declared foreigner”. nrcoffi-
cers told her family this was because she
has been tagged a “d” or doubtful voter by
the state’s election commission, which
means she will automatically have to de-
fend herself at a Foreigners’ Tribunal.
When it was pointed out that Ms Nisa is the
only “foreigner” in her family, and is also
too young to have ever registered to vote,
the officers shrugged.
Or listen to Shamas Uddin, 93, an illiter-
ate farmer. He was born in this village
when it had just a handful of houses, he
says. His name appeared on all the nrc
drafts but then, in March, a certain Debajit
Goswami officially objected to his inclu-
sion. Mr Uddin does not know his accuser.
No one in the village does, and indeed law-
yers with a local ngofailed to track down
Mr Goswami at his registered address. Nor
did he show up at either of the nrchear-
ings to which Mr Uddin was summoned, in
two different towns 150km apart.
Perhaps this is because Mr Goswami’s
name appears on hundreds of “objection”
letters, demanding the removal of suspect-
ed foreigners from the nrc. Under rules set
by India’s Supreme Court, no less, such in-
dividuals were given licence to denounce
any number of fellow citizens, and also ex-
cused from appearing to face those they ac-
cuse. In this district alone, a suspiciously
small number of objectors, all believed
linked to Assamese nativist groups, some-
how gained access to a local nrcdatabase
and together penned 30,000 such objec-
tion certificates. Across the state, some
220,000 such poisoned letters were filed
before a deadline in May. Indigenous activ-
ists in other parts of north-eastern India, in
turn, have begun to waylay migrant work-
ers from Assam, demanding to see proof
that they are on the nrcand turning away
those who cannot provide it.
“No one here is from Bangladesh,”scoffs Rahum Ali, one of Mr Uddin’s neigh-
bours. “Where would they settle? There is
no land. Brothers are fighting over land.”
Mr Ali is 70 but was not included in the nrc
drafts, although three brothers and two sis-
ters were. Summoned to an nrcoffice, he
was told his case is pftor “pending For-
eigners’ Tribunal”. He was subsequently
summoned four more times, to offices in
different towns, each time wondering if he
would be thrown in jail, only to be told the
same thing. But although he is told there is
a case, no case number is cited, so he has no
idea which out of some 100 Foreigners’ Tri-
bunals he should appear before. A local
lawyer says that 46 people in the village are
similarly pftand being “driven mad” by re-
peated summonses.
How did this Kafkaesque situation
arise? As so often in India the blame lies
partly with British rule and partly with tox-
ic Indian politics. Under the Raj millions of
Bengalis, mostly Muslim, were encouraged
to settle in Assam. With independence, lo-
cal politicians thrived by playing up the
“threat” that intruders posed to native lan-
guage and culture. With the rise of Hindu
nationalism, the religious component has
been magnified and the threat recast as one
to India’s national security.
As a result, claims of ever bigger num-
bers of supposed illegal migrants have
been bandied about. With Assamese chau-
vinists repeatedly asserting that 5m or even
8m “infiltrators” have invaded their state,
right-wing politicians have scented the
possibility of erasing much of the typically
left-leaning Muslim “vote bank” from the
rolls. They are substantiating the baseless
estimates by declaring millions to be “for-
eigners”. “It’s like Chernobyl,” says a law-
yer, “They are trying to hide a lie at the cost
of disaster.”
No one seems to know what the ulti-
mate fate of Assam’s “foreigners” will be.
They cannot be deported; Bangladesh flatly
rejects the whole exercise as an internal In-
dian matter. Millions of people cannot be
shunted to some other part of India, either.
The bjphas offered a solution for some:
cocking a snook at the secular constitu-
tion, it is pushing an amendment to citi-
zenship laws that will allow refugees who
are Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Christian to
apply for citizenship, but specifically ban
Muslims. Nani Gopal Mahanta, chair of po-
litical science at Assam’s Gauhati Universi-
ty and a bjpsupporter, has some sugges-
tions for those who still fall foul. He thinks
that the Foreigners’ Tribunals may not act
very quickly, taking perhaps 20 years to
sort through their case load. Those de-
clared non-citizens need not be made
stateless, but could simply be stripped of
civil rights, perhaps for a limited time.
“Citizenship, whether you like it or not, is
not a very democratic concept,” he says.
Kafka would certainly have agreed. 7GoroimariDhakaMYANMARBHUTANBay of BengalNEPALCHINABANGLADESH
INDIAAssam250 km
It was abreakthrough, albeit only by the
forlorn standards of the 40-year conflict
in Afghanistan. After two days of talks with
Afghan officials at a posh hotel in Qatar, en-
voys of the Taliban promised that their in-
surgents would not attack schools, hospi-
tals or bazaars. The Afghan government,
too, said it would try to stop killing civil-
ians. But more important than their woolly
resolutions was the fact that the two sides
were speaking at all. Officially, the Taliban
insists that the Afghan government is an il-
legitimate puppet regime; it was only “in a
personal capacity” that its envoys met Af-
ghan officials, alongside politicians and
representatives of ngos.
The meeting was partly to break the ice
and partly to brainstorm over a “road map
for peace”. In addition to the resolution
about avoiding civilian casualties, the
vague, non-binding declaration also pro-
vided an outline of sorts for future negotia-
tions on a peace deal. Women’s rights, the
Taliban agreed, would be protected, albeit
within an “Islamic framework”. By the
same token, “institutionalising an Islamic
system”, the delegates decided, would not
involve dissolving government institu-
tions such as the army.
The American government, which is
hoping to find a face-saving formula to
withdraw from Afghanistan, has long
called for such a meeting. With the Afghan
government sidelined, talks between
America and the Taliban had naturally fo-ISLAMABAD
The Taliban negotiates with Afghan
officials for the first timeAfghan peace talksHappy talk
Smiling in a personal capacity only